Box Score
LANCASTER, Pa. – Gettysburg posted its best comeback of the season, rallying from 13 points down in the opening half to defeat Franklin & Marshall College 75-68 in Centennial Conference action Wednesday evening at the Mayser Center.
With the win, the Bullets tied a pair of school records. Gettysburg improved to 20-3 (15-2 CC) on the season, tying the single-season record for victories set by the 2001-02 team. Gettysburg also won its ninth game in a row, which ties the longest in-season winning streak in school history. The 1960-61 was the last team to win nine straight, with the 1938-39 club being the other. Several longer winning streaks were established by Gettysburg in overlapping seasons.
Junior guard Corey Dorsey (Frederick, Md./St. Johns at Prospect Hall) led Gettysburg with a game-high 24 points, including a pair of clutch free throws in the final minute, and shot 4-for-8 from beyond the arc while backcourt mate Dan Capkin (Wynnewood, Pa./Lower Merion) added 20 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Capkin is now nine points shy of reaching the 1,000 plateau for his career.
Mitch Rhyner paced F&M (12-12, 7-10 CC) with 19 points on 5-of-7 shooting from three-point range.
After scoring 29 points in the opening half, the Bullets outscored F&M 46-34 in the second stanza, when it connected at a 60.0% clip.
The Diplomats trailed by as much as eight in the second half before rallying in the final minutes. A conventional three-point play from Brandon Chasen made it a 67-65 game, but that's as close as F&M would get. Freshman forward Andrew Powers (Boyertown, Pa./Boyertown) answered for Gettysburg with an emphatic dunk, driving down the lane and over an F&M defender to push the lead to four.
After the two sides exchanged turnovers, Capkin dropped in a driving lay-up with 50 seconds left to extend Gettysburg's lead to 71-65 before Rhyner canned his final trey of the night to make it a one-possession game with 41 ticks showing. However, Dorsey came up big, hitting a pair of free throws after a hard foul on a lay-up attempt with 33 seconds to go. F&M then missed back-to-back three-pointers, and Dorsey scored a lay-up just before the buzzer.
Despite playing only eight minutes in the first half and 24 minutes total due to foul trouble, Powers finished with 15 points for the Bullets while junior forward Joe Spierenburg (Chambersburg, Pa./St. Maria Goretti (Md.)) posted seven points, 11 rebounds, five assists, and four blocks. Junior guard Chris Nevolo (Neshanic Station, N.J./Somerville) contributed four assists.
James McNally added 15 points and seven rebounds for F&M while Chasen had 13 points, seven assists, and six rebounds.
After five lead changes over the opening five minutes, Rhyner canned back-to-back three-pointers 29 seconds apart to put the Diplomats in front 12-7. F&M would not trail over the remainder of the half, and a 10-0 run, capped by Rhyner's third trey of the period, gave the hosts a 13-point advantage (26-13) with 6:40 on the clock.
It was still a 13-point game (29-16) after a Rhyner jumper at the 4:44 mark. But a Capkin three kicked off a 13-3 Gettysburg run, which included a nifty play from Nevolo, who swatted an offensive rebound from the foul line to a wide-open Spierenburg for basket underneath.
Capkin dropped in a beautiful fastbreak lay-up in traffic with 1:24 left to make it a 32-29 game, but a Daniel Selig lay-up with 49 ticks showing gave the Dips a 34-29 lead at the break.
Spierenburg grabbed eight of his boards in the opening half as Gettysburg out-rebounded F&M 20-14 in the period but committed seven more turnovers (11-4).
The Bullets came out of the locker room on fire, scoring 12 points over the opening 2:17 of the stanza. Capkin and Dorsey got things started with back-to-back treys before handing the keys to Powers. Making up for lost time, the freshman scored three straight buckets, the second of which gave the Bullets a lead (39-38) they would not relinquish.
A pair of Dorsey threes sandwiched around a Spierenburg put-back accounted for an 8-2 Bullet run that gave Gettysburg its largest lead (55-47) of the game with 10:33 to go. The Bullets still led by seven (64-57) after a long Capkin trey with 6:12 left before F&M chipped away and made it a two-point game.
Gettysburg shot 51.1% from the field, 45.0% (9-of-20) from three-point range and 71.4% (10-of-14) at the foul line. F&M shot 45.5% from the floor and 58.3% (7-of-12) from long range but was just 52.4% (11-for-21) at the charity stripe.
The Bullets close out their regular season on Saturday, when they host McDaniel College at 2 p.m. on Senior Day.
